Nintendo Switch modder ordered to pay $2 million in piracy lawsuit

Nintendo has notched different triumph successful its crusade against piracy. Last week, a Washington District Court justice ordered Ryan Daley to wage Nintendo $2 cardinal and halt selling modded Switch consoles online, arsenic reported earlier by Engadget.

In a copyright suit filed past year, Nintendo accused Daley of operating the website Modded Hardware, which sold modded Switch consoles, modchips utilized to hack into Switch devices, and Mig flash cartridges that let radical to play pirated copies of games.

Nintendo claimed Daley caused the institution “significant and irreparable harm” — and the justice agreed. “The MIG Devices, Mod Chips, Hacked Consoles, and Circumvention Services let members of the nationalist to create, distribute, and play pirated Nintendo games connected a monolithic scale,” the ruling states. Daley denied immoderate wrongdoing.

Piracy lawsuits from Nintendo person go progressively common, with the institution winning its lawsuit against a file-sharing site accused of hosting pirated games earlier this year. Nintendo’s ineligible actions person led to the shutdown of Switch emulators, including Yuzu and Ryujinx. The institution has besides made it wide that it whitethorn brick Switch 2 consoles if players effort to mod the device.

Daley, who chose to combat Nintendo without a lawyer, is present banned from modding Switch consoles, arsenic good arsenic from utilizing devices designed to circumvent the console’s information measures. The justice besides ordered the seizure, impoundment, oregon demolition of each devices owned by Daley that whitethorn incorporate copyright-infringing material.